


Fraudulence

by LordNesquik



Series: Night Reading [1]
Category: Nocturnal - Fandom, YouNeedTheCage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23802775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordNesquik/pseuds/LordNesquik
Summary: An after-hours meeting in a candlelit office of a local capital.
Series: Night Reading [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795237
Kudos: 2





	Fraudulence

Shiguto’s office was lit by only a waning candle, its wax blurring into the shimmering metal pan that held it. The light reflected off its sheen and danced across the papers neatly covering the desk. His eyes seemed ablaze with two reflections of the flickering sole point of light, deep fatigue showing its marks beneath his eyelids. What was illuminated of his bright red fur was a splash of color in the room, and it faded into a pink at his paws and ears.

His writing was furious yet careful; his pen glided easily across the parchment and flew silently between it and his inkwell. As he reached the bottom of the page, he returned his pen to rest in the well and began to read over his work.

Without warning, a gust of air nearly whisked the loose sheet he’d been writing on from his desk and ran some of the freshest ink down the page towards him. He looked up to see the door swung open by a straight-standing figure. Only their front half towards the candle was illuminated, and no new light entered the office from the hallway. Shiguto could see a recently snuffed lamp from his seat in its fixture on the wall outside.

Shiguto squinted through the darkness at the figure. Their fur was tints of orange and beige, and their carried posture suggested they were young, yet mature.

They wore the telltale radiant crimson of the Flame.

“Good evening, Mr. Shiguto,” they greeted in a grim tone, closing the door as they did.

“Good evening. I wasn’t expecting a visitor, but please, have a seat,” Shiguto offered, gesturing a paw outward. At the invitation, the Flame drew the chair opposite Shiguto from beneath the heavy hardwood desk and sat down.

“And you are?” Shiguto followed, his eyes twitching intermittently between his guest and his still-drying writings.

“I’m Reki Herald, here on behalf of the Great Flame.”

Shiguto smiled. He carefully picked up the parchment in front of him and laid it on a stack of papers, leaving a comfortable portion of the desk in front of him clear, where he crossed his arms and leaned over his desk towards Reki.

“I can see that. How can I help?” Shiguto asked.

Reki drew a breath to speak before stopping himself. He looked upwards in inquisitive thought for a moment, seemingly piecing together his words.

“I’ll get to the point. You have been suspected of committing embezzlement and fraud against the governor. The Flame chapter is expecting an explanation for a few things and will need to conduct a full audit of your recent work.”

With that, Reki calmly laid his paws on the desk and stared Shiguto down in silence. The candlelight cast a long shadow across his expressions.

“Well, I’ve done no such thing,” he calmly responded, his wide smile unshaken. Reki nodded slowly.

“If that’s the truth, I’m sure we can come to a reasonable and swift conclusion.”

“I won’t ever _have_ done such thing, either,” Shiguto shot back, almost cutting Reki off.

Reki drew his head back. The shadows across his face receded as he moved backwards, showing more of his red eyes.

“I don’t follow,” Reki inquired.

“Of course not. Why would a Flame be investigating fraud? Seems awful hypocritical.”

“Are you denouncing the Great Flame?!” Reki whisper-shouted, sounding more like an accusation than a question.

“Truth is, if you wanted the favor of exposing a fraud scheme, you would’ve just turned in the evidence, let the real Flames do the work. No, you saw an opportunity. Something you could get from me,” Shiguto added in a sly tone.

“I wanted answers,” Reki retorted. Shiguto stifled a laugh.

“Every valuable answer is in the documents. That’s how accounting works – if it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen. In fact, that’s how blackmail works too. You should know.”

Reki sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“That’s what you wanted,” Shiguto continued. “You thought you could hold this over me.”

“Nothing but lies,” Reki assuaged, waving a paw at Shiguto. Only the bottom half of his arm was lit by the candle. At this, Shiguto giggled quietly.

“Unfortunately for your poor acting, I assumed I’d get an upstart problem like you.”

“What do you mean?” Reki asked, the denial in his voice giving way to curiosity.

“Do you really think I’d leave something like the Flame to chance? As a financier, would I really be so irresponsible?”

“That’s nonsense,” Reki denied, his voice declining into panic.

“Every paladin, every priest, every acolyte in this city belongs to _me_. _I_ put food on their table, _I_ cover up their mistakes, and _I_ hide their dirty laundry. If I fall, they topple and drown.”

Reki set his paws firmly on the desk and stood up. The light now exposed most of his body, his seemingly spring-loaded legs contrasting with his squared upper body.

“You are a liar, a denier, and a fool. The Flame _will_ bring justice to you,” Reki asserted.

“Go ahead,” Shiguto insisted, relaxing further back in his chair. “Make your report. You’ll be disowned by your priest and fired.”

“Do you not expect the governor to see this case?!” Reki asked, more confusion in his voice than accusation.

Shiguto stretched his arms outwards and yawned.

“Power is just another word for money. There’s a governor in this town, but it isn’t who you’re calling governor,” Shiguto boasted.

Reki scoffed. Without another word, he turned around and moved for the door. As soon as Reki’s eyes moved off him, Shiguto slid his chair out and stood up as well.

“Sadly for you, I like to keep a perfect record,” Shiguto remarked as he reached over his desk to snuff out the candle. As he did, the room was drowned in darkness. Reki swung his paw around searching for the door handle, but before he could find it, the resounding twang of a crossbow sounded behind him.

A bolt of cold steel entered the back of his skull before he could move. Instantly lifeless, his body was hung limp as the bolt pierced through his head and continued into the solid door.

“Headshot,” Shiguto quietly remarked. He set his crossbow back in its hidden compartment low in his desk and stepped easily around his office in the dark. As he walked, he kept his paw against the wall, feeling his way to the door frame and reaching out to inspect the body. He grabbed the corpse’s arm for only a moment before jerking his paw back in fear.

It was frigid. Cold as if it had been dead for days, not moments.

His paw continued up to the steel bolt, and he felt along it. Despite driving all the way through Reki’s head, it was clean of blood, and the point of entry resembled a pin in a cushion more than it did a fracture.

Shiguto began to turn back towards his candle when a cold, solid shadow wrapped around his neck and pulled his wrists behind his back.

“To kill such a young Flame, and over your own schemes. How egotistical.” The voice that whispered into his ear was Reki’s, but its naive pride had drained away.

“Wh-who _are_ you?” Shiguto choked out through the shadow’s ever-tightening grip.

“Oh, who am I? You ask that now? Well, I suppose I’m just an attentive citizen, is all. You were so obsessed with your own power that you couldn’t stop bragging about it. All I had to do was listen in.”

“I surrender,” Shiguto coughed. The shadow tugged his wrists and laughed in his ear.

“Then you will die as you lived,” it declared, lining up Shiguto’s skull with the other end of the bolt still sticking out from the door.

“A coward.”

The last thing Shiguto saw was the reverse end of his own crossbow bolt slamming straight between his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Boy, this one was fun to write. The Nocturnal world is so good for political intrigue, which I've been itching to write after spending so long in a canon where it isn't possible. Excited to see what the comic does with all of it.


End file.
